Sense
by Sardonic Kender Smile
Summary: It came to her like a wave, crashing down on top of her, fiercely stinging the inside of her nose until her temples pulsed and throbbed, covering all of her vision in bitter blackness. And then she saw the blood. /Ninian, Nils, and sensing danger./


**_Sense_**

It came to her like a wave, crashing down on top of her, fiercely stinging the inside of her nose until her temples pulsed and throbbed, covering all of her vision in bitter blackness.

And then she saw the blood.

Ninian gasped, almost expecting to take in a lungful of water as she did so, but inhaling water was suddenly the last of her worries.

What she and Nils had told Lady Lyndis and Lord Eliwood, when they joined their small army all those weeks ago, was that they had a special Sense—an ability to feel danger approaching. What they did not say, could not explain, was that it was so much more than a Sense—it was a Feeling, and also a Sight.

They received a Vision.

And the one presenting itself before Ninian's eyes, where before there had only been soft twilight skies and the points of tents being erected for that night's camp, was an especially horrible one. She suddenly sensed—heard—_saw_ a scream, Lord Eliwood's usually gentle voice ripped from his throat in agony until he choked on it. She saw him collapse not ten feet away from her, blood pouring from a stab wound in his chest, coating his hands as he tried to cover it up and hold it all in, leaking from underneath his matted hair and flowing into his eyes, filling his ears, dripping from his chin and jaw. He screamed again, and Ninian screamed too.

"Ninian!" a voice was calling, Eliwood's voice, but that was impossible because he was dying in front of her, blood leaking out of every pore—

The battlefield had turned into an ocean, an ocean of briny blood, and Lyn and Florina and Lord Hector and all the other people Ninian was slowly becoming to know as comrades, as friends, were floating face-down in it. The air reeked of ambush, of death, of danger. She saw it. She saw it all.

A hand was shaking her arm. She tore out of its grasp, still screaming. Why were they trying to restrain her? Couldn't they see what was happening? That something needed to be done?

"Ninian!" Eliwood's voice said again, and she forced her eyes to open, even though she knew the salty blood-ocean water would sting them the way it was searing her lungs and her nose and—

The sky was blue. The air smelled of pine.

She couldn't catch her breath.

Eliwood was holding onto her shoulders, gently but firmly, his blue eyes very close to her own.

"Ninian, what is it?" he asked her worriedly. "You were screaming."

She rolled her eyes around like a panicked horse, able to make out people standing behind Eliwood—Lyn, Lowen, Marcus, Rebecca. People had stopped setting up camp and were now staring at her. It didn't matter.

She threw herself closer to Eliwood, clutching at his tunic as she buried her face in his shoulder, and even the sweet security of his arms automatically wrapping around her did little to dispel her panic.

"They're coming," she gasped. "Danger. There's danger ahead."

"How soon?" Eliwood asked her urgently, but before she could reply, the loud voice of Lord Hector interrupted:

"Eliwood! Do you have her covered? Nils just collapsed, I need to go to him and—"

"Nils?" Lyn asked sharply, and she hurried off with Hector to tend to the boy. Ninian moaned.

"He'll be all right," Eliwood assured her quickly. She was dimly aware of one of his hands moving to the back of her head, stroking her hair. "He sensed the same danger, didn't he…the poor boy. What you both have is a boon to our army, but I can't even imagine how horrible it must be to sense such things…"

_It's not just what we feel_, Ninian wanted to tell him. _It's what we_ see.

But she couldn't tell him what she saw. She couldn't possibly describe to him the colour of his own blood, which was the shade of his hair but somehow far more shocking. She couldn't describe his glistening, gore-striped face, or the crimson ocean that he drowned in. She pulled away from his arms and gagged, only barely able to keep herself from vomiting.

"Ninian—" he said again, moving toward her.

She stumbled back. "I-I have to go to Nils. I have to make sure he's okay."

"Can you make it?" The young lord's eyes were filled with concern…a very warm concern, a very tender one. "I could escort you, if you so wished."

"Lord Eliwood!" Marcus shouted, his gruff voice piercing through the building din of the camp—the soldiers, by now used to Ninian and Nils' strange fits, were hurrying for their weapons. "Lord Eliwood, the tactician has summoned you! A plan of action must be made at once!"

Eliwood clearly heard the man, but he remained where he was, one hand stretched out toward Ninian and his eyes locked firmly on hers.

She was torn. He had more pressing and important matters to take care of, and post haste…but at the same time, how could she possibly refuse his presence after what she had just seen? What if this time her sense did more than warn; it predicted? What if he truly _was_ killed, and she could never hold onto his arm again?

Ninian dropped her head into an informal bow. "Thank you, Lord Eliwood, but I will be fine."

"Lord Eliwood!" Marcus shouted again.

Reluctantly, Eliwood curled his hand back to his side and began to turn away. His eyes left her last, lingering on hers, but once he was striding away he did not look back. Ninian turned as well, to go find Nils—

And the sense hit her again. Harder. Stronger.

* * *

She must have fainted, she realized, just as Nils had, because she felt herself returning to consciousness—and how could she return, if she had never left?

She was not in an ocean of blood, this time, but when she opened her eyes again all that she saw was red: her own eyes, she realized, scarlet and frightened, reflected on and on forever in a tunnelish nightmare world. She almost panicked yet again, until she felt a small hand squeeze her own and a voice call her name.

Nils. It was Nils' voice. And as Ninian regained her bearings, she realized that she wasn't trapped in a tunnel…her head was resting in her younger brother's lap, and she was looking up into his eyes, which matched the shade of her own perfectly. She saw her eyes reflected in his, and then his within hers again, onward forever in a link between them that she knew could never be broken, and calm seeped into her.

Slightly.

"Nils," she gasped, clutching her brother's hand, "You're okay!"

He nodded. "I fainted earlier, but Lord Hector and Lady Lyn helped me back up. The Sense came again…but I was able to stay awake during that one. They were still holding me." He smiled thinly. "I guess you weren't so lucky, sister. Did you hurt your head?"

When Ninian thought about it, she realized that her head _did_ hurt—at the very back of her skull. She felt the area gingerly to find that a bump was already forming. She must have hit her head when she had fallen. If only she had taken Lord Eliwood up on his offer—

_Lord Eliwood!_

A spike of fear drove through her so suddenly that her entire body jolted.

"He's alive," Nils told her quickly, almost harshly, though his face was tight with a child's tender worry. "Ninian, Ninian, calm down. He's alive."

"Still?" she nearly shrieked. "Nils, he's in such danger! You received the Sense just as well as I did, received the Vision, you saw him—!"

"It was just a Sense," Nils protested, although he looked more like a toddler protesting that it wasn't bedtime yet—some fact that he couldn't be sure of, but only desperately wished was true. "You need to stand up, Ninian. Everyone else is far ahead, fighting. We have stayed behind too long."

"But I saw him _die_, I saw _all_ of them-!"

"I know," Nils cut her off. "I know. But right now everyone is still alive. Right now there are still things we can do to help them. You have to stand up and dance, Ninian."

She took a deep gulp of air, trying to fight back her panic. It made her legs shivery and her heart fluttery again, although there was some solid relief in knowing that Nils had seen what she had seen.

They had that Gift—that Sense.

That Vision.

And, with the Vision, she knew they had the power to alter it. Nils was right. She struggled to sit up, still holding tightly to her brother's hand, and he helped her to her feet. As she looked around she realized that they were in the army's camp, now deserted, and that night had already fallen. An evening fog had fallen as well, although in the distance she could hear the clash of steel on steel and see the occasional orange rush of a fire spell.

"Go dance for him," Nils urged her. "You can keep him safe."

The Sense swam before her again like a tapestry in the mist, painted with gruesome sprays of blood, accompanied by a symphony of screaming. Lord Eliwood's battlecry cut short, gurgling—

Ninian sprinted forward into the fray, into the vision, and it dissipated before her.

* * *

_A/N: Ladies and gentlemen, I have been reading way too much Stephen King._


End file.
